


Shadows of Another Day

by Owlship



Series: Riding the SkyTrain [4]
Category: Transformers: Cyberverse
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Developing Relationship, Emotional Obliviousness, F/M, Implied Dead End/Perceptor, Improper Use of Subspace/Transwarp/Unspace, Other, Pranks and Practical Jokes, Size Difference, Size Kink, Sticky Sexual Interfacing, Transformers Plug and Play Sexual Interfacing, shady smuggling deals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-30
Updated: 2020-09-30
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:53:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26719336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Owlship/pseuds/Owlship
Summary: In the absence of any more attacks, Astrotrain settles on accepting that it really was an accident. Which means the prank was just a prank, and now it's his turn to come up with a way to ruin Skywarp's day. Because apparently she likes that sort of thing.
Relationships: Astrotrain/Skywarp (Transformers)
Series: Riding the SkyTrain [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1926703
Comments: 6
Kudos: 20





	Shadows of Another Day

**Author's Note:**

> I kind of really committed to the subspace-fucking this time around, so, uh. I hope y'all like slightly-eldritch imagery in your smut?

Astrotrain wouldn't say he _likes_ recharging in his alt-modes, but he's used to it. In a way he can even find comfort in it, knowing his weak spots are better protected, that he can leave quickly. And the berth he has in this dimension is just awful anyway.

He's kind of regretting not transforming to his root mode last night, though. Because he onlines to a chorus of confused sensor readings, and booting up his optical feed shows him that the entire interior of his train alt is _filled_ with buckets and jars and various other containers, each with an unidentifiable liquid inside.

There's no doubt in his mind who's to blame: Skywarp. Presumably this is her revenge for him painting her wings the other day.

The question of 'how' is harder to answer, because she's a teleporter but he doesn't recharge so deeply that he wouldn't notice her warping in. At least, he hadn't _thought_ he recharged that soundly. His memory isn't pulling up anything concrete, though, baseline sensors that run even in recharge scrambled and vague.

He has no idea what's in any of the containers, so he doesn't yet dare to just transform and deal with the mess it'll cause. The substances are probably harmless but his sensor banks are tuned outwards, not inwards, so he'd have no warning if he's about to spill something caustic on himself. And his internal plating is not as durable as his exterior, his delicate components easier to damage from that vantage.

So Astrotrain sits in the hangar, stuck. His transformation scheme doesn't allow him to partially transform a usable limb, not without upsetting the containers, and in his locomotive form he doesn't even have a wide cargo hatch to dump the mess out in one fell swoop.

He has a lot of experience waiting around, perfectly still, but that doesn't make it any more pleasant.

Salvation comes in the unlikely form of Dead End, too engrossed in sulking about their shared patrol mission to notice that Astrotrain ushers him inside his alt-mode quickly, without any of his usual hassling. Dead End's pedes kick over one of the buckets just past the threshold, optics suddenly snapping into focus, but Astrotrain has already shut and locked his exterior door.

"What on Cybertron...?" Dead End says.

Astrotrain onlines his holo-avatar and smirks. It was a prank meant to inconvenience him (and it definitely has) but here's a golden opportunity to make Dead End's cycle miserable as well. "Morning," he says, insincerity dripping off the word.

"You filled yourself with paint stripper?" Dead End says, crouching down to rub at the splatters on his legs. And only succeeding in rubbing away spots of his paint, frown growing deeper by the astrocycle.

Astrotrain laughs; he couldn't have planned that better if he'd tried, because one of the few things Dead End takes any actual pleasure in is his finish.

"Oh, laugh it up, piston-head," Dead End snaps. He kicks over another bucket deliberately, this one filled with dark viscous oil that looks like it was siphoned straight out of Mixmaster's undercarriage. It'll be a pain in the aft to scrub away, but it's not harmful.

Then he turns to the doorway, but Astrotrain has no intention of letting him out.

"You're picking all these up," he tells Dead End.

"Not on your life," Dead End says.

"Okay," Astrotrain says with false pleasantness, "Then I'll just smash you to scrap." He shifts just enough of his plating to rattle and creak threateningly, reminding Dead End he's in a mech's alt-mode and not some harmless drone of a transport.

Dead End glares at him. He glares back.

"Alright," Dead End says after a few astrocycles of this, and makes a show of picking up one of the jars, then pretending to be surprised when Astrotrain's door stays firmly shut. "You going to open up and let me chuck this?"

Astrotrain isn't a total idiot. If he opens that door, Dead End will bolt and leave Astrotrain to deal with the mess himself. He's not sure what to do instead, though- he doesn't really have anything to leverage over Dead End, once the threat of pain is off the table, and it's not like he has anyone else he can bully into it either.

The astrocycles tick by.

"Getting kinda heavy," Dead End says, with cloyingly false sincerity.

Inspiration strikes, and Astrotrain grins through his holo-avatar. The confidence slips off Dead End's faceplate, replaced with suspicion.

Astrotrain opens a portal to unspace and ignores the fact that his wheels aren't meant to drive without a rail, because he just has to push himself a couple of mechanometers until he clears the rim of the portal.

Dead End curses, dropping the bucket to grab onto Astrotrain's interior for balance. Medical lubricant joins the oil and paint thinner on his flooring.

Once he's fully inside unspace, Astrotrain slides his door open. "Okay," he says, "Now start."

"I hate you so much," Dead End tells him, looking out into the un-dimension with an odd mix of horror and resignation on his faceplate. Now if he tries to flee, he'll just float endlessly until Astrotrain takes mercy on him- which won't be for a long, long time.

"Don't forget to wipe up what you spilled," Astrotrain says.

Dead End whirls away from the open door to glare at his holo-avatar. "I ought to smash your processor in for this," he says, but is hampered from getting close by all the containers strewn around Astrotrain's floor plating.

He grumbles, and sulks, and generally does not actually start cleaning. That's alright. Astrotrain is used to waiting, it's no real hardship to pull up a game sim on his processor and pass the time that way.

Eventually, Dead End resigns himself to his task, and starts picking up the containers to hurl out into the chasm of unspace. It takes a considerable amount of time, because Skywarp had really outdone herself with packing them all in.

"How'd you even get these in here, anyway?" Dead End asks, grimacing at the contents of the container he's dragging out from under Astrotrain's main engine.

"I didn't," Astrotrain says with some reluctance. He'd like to claim credit since it's clearly making Dead End miserable to have to deal with it, but he can't think of a convincing lie.

"...Then who did?" Dead End says.

"Skywarp," Astrotrain replies. It's possible she had help, but he really can't figure out how he would have missed _multiple_ mecha traipsing through his alt-mode. Just knowing he recharged through her presence is bad enough. "She's a teleporter."

Dead End lets out a snort of laughter. "Oh, I'm aware," he says with a tone that implies he's personally familiar with her teleportation abilities, and is taking pleasure in not being the victim this time. "She got you with glitter, too, didn't she?"

Astrotrain says nothing. He still occasionally gets reports from his self-repair about shards of glitter being found by his nanites.

His telling silence makes Dead End chuckle, far more amused than he should be considering Astrotrain's goodwill is the only thing stopping him from getting chucked into unspace.

When the majority of the containers have been cleared away, Dead End picks up one he's been rather pointedly avoiding thus far, and holds it up above Astrotrain's dashboard like he wants to admire it in the red glow of his holo-avatar. Astrotrain is not impressed.

"We haven't discussed how you're going to thank me for cleaning up this mess," Dead End says.

"Because I'm not," Astrotrain says simply.

"You know what's in this cube?" Dead End says, and swirls it slightly. The fluid is clear, thin. The jar's unlabeled so it could be just about anything, though Astrotrain's betting it's just more solvent. "Molecular acid," he continues. "A single drop'll burn through your circuits before you can even scream."

Astrotrain doubts it, but he doesn't have the sensor array to scan it internally and find out what it really is. Even if it _is_ true, his dashboard isn't actually packed with anything too important- he learned that lesson early on, rearranging his core systems to be as protected as possible when in his alt-modes. It would hurt like pit and cripple his sensor arrays, among other things, but Dead End could melt his whole cab section to slag and it wouldn't totally offline him.

Dead End tips the cube, optics flicking between the progress of the fluid as it slowly beads up on the rim, and Astrotrain's holo-avatar.

A single drop spills over the edge, and splashes down against his dashboard. For a split astrocycle he thinks he's called Dead End's bluff, but then searing pain hits him as the acid starts to burn into his metal.

Astrotrain offlines his vocalizer so he can't shout in pain, but he can't stop his frame from bucking in place, trying to get away from the spot of agony but unable to actually move considering he's floating in unspace in his locomotive alt.

It's been a while since he's felt pain on this level, actuators all along his chassis twitching in useless motion, HUD totally obscured with error messages. But it passes, the single drop of acid fizzling out, leaving him with just the sensation of severed wires and sparking circuitry where it melted through him.

It might not deactivate him to have the entire cube poured on his dash, but Astrotrain is not eager to feel any more of its effects. He resets his vocalizer. "What do you want?"

Dead End is looking at the still-smoking hole the acid left with interest, but he turns his attention to Astrotrain's holo-avatar. "You're going to transport me wherever I want to go, whenever I want to go," he says, "And not tell anyone about it."

Astrotrain wants to laugh. Dead End could have used his leverage for anything, and he's wasting it on the type of jobs Astrotrain has long since resigned himself to fulfilling. Sure, he definitely needs incentive to cart Dead End around when not ordered to by Megatron, but he'd have been fine with just getting bribed a few cubes of high-grade for the task like most mecha offer.

"I'll take you if I'm not busy," he says.

"I said, _whenever_ ," Dead End says, and wiggles the cube of acid, liquid sloshing up against the sides in an obvious threat.

"Fine, whatever," Astrotrain says. It's not like Dead End will be able to actually make him appear when he's called for, and the acid won't be much leverage once it's no longer dangled over his circuitry.

"And you won't tell anyone about any of it," Dead End says.

Astrotrain rolls his optics so hard his holo-avatar glitches- or possibly that's the fault of the damage to his dash. "Of course not."

"I'm glad we understand one another," Dead End says pleasantly, and caps up the cube before slipping it into his subspace.

As annoying as it is to have made a deal with Dead End to play taxi, Astrotrain is even more slagged off that Skywarp gave Dead End the tool to threaten him with in the first place. Filling his alt-mode with containers of random substances is a prank; booby-trapping him with enough molecular acid to offline him is an attack.

He can't figure out _why_ she did it, though. He thought they were having fun with each other, and it doesn't make sense to try deactivating him just for slapping the Autobot symbol on her wings.

She's hard to track down, always flitting around the base like she has an inexhaustible supply of energy and a million tasks in progress, never stopping any one place long enough for him to confront her. He can't tell if she's avoiding him, or just really is that busy.

Finally he gives up on talking to her face to face and just comms her. ::Your acid didn't work::

Her reply is quick, and sounds honest. ::Huh? What acid?::

::The molecular acid from that stunt you pulled in my alt-mode:: Astrotrain says.

::Hah! Got you good, didn't I?:: she says, smugness radiating off her tone. ::I didn't use any acid, though, just lube and stuff::

He considers for a moment whether Dead End could have planted the cube- but why bother? It's not like it would change the threat he made. Someone else? But only a teleporter could get inside his alt-mode when he's locked down for the night, at least not without alerting him.

And, again, why make it seem like part of a prank? They could have just thrown the acid at him and been done with it if they wanted him deactivated.

While he's thinking, Skywarp sends another message, sounding thoughtful. ::I _did_ take some stuff from one of Shockwave's old labs... Maybe the jars got mixed up?::

::Do you still have the acid?:: she asks before he can reply.

::Dead End has it:: he says, and decides against asking what she was doing in Shockwave's lab, or why she didn't label what she took more clearly.

::That could be a problem:: she says, but doesn't seem all that concerned. ::Sorry about almost melting you, gotta go!::

The connection cuts abruptly, leaving Astrotrain feeling slightly off-balance, like he needs to recalibrate his gyros. It's a feeling he's becoming to associate with interactions with Skywarp.

In the absence of any more attacks, he settles on accepting that it really was an accident. Which means the prank was just a prank, and now it's his turn to come up with a way to ruin Skywarp's day. Because apparently she likes that sort of thing.

Astrotrain takes simple pleasure in the petty revenge of slamming his doors closed in his passenger's faceplates, or tossing an empty energon cube at someone being annoying. But he's been paying attention to what he hears about Skywarp- not that there's a lot, since most mecha don't really interact with him to share gossip- and if her reputation is anything to go on, she truly delights in pranks and schemes.

Unfortunately, he's not clever about it like she is. Painting her wings was probably the closest he can come without putting actual work into it, and that was just a random flash of inspiration when he saw some paint cans in the corner of the half-finished lab.

He could return the latest favor and do something to her berth? Except he has no idea where that is, or what he'd use.

Astrotrain would just forget the whole idea, except he likes fragging her and if he doesn't keep her interest somehow, he's sure she'll move on to some other berthmate.

His train of thought is derailed by a comm from Dead End, telling him to meet him in the hangar and be ready to fly out. Astrotrain considers just telling him to frag off, or ignoring him altogether, but then he figures he can strand Dead End at whatever destination he's so eager to keep secret, and extort some _actual_ payment out of him for the return trip.

He's thinking a full twenty astroliters of high-grade seems fair, considering the hole in his chassis that's still slowly filling back in.

When picking him up Astrotrain gives him a hard time, of course, until Dead End threatens to take out the acid. And then he thinks, actually, if he can get the molecular acid away from Dead End he can return it to Skywarp, and then she'll owe him something. It's definitely something he's going to keep in mind.

The coordinates Dead End gives him bring them out above the remains of Polyhex, deep inside Autobot territory.

Astrotrain half expects someone to start shooting his wings off, but the city is dark and silent. He doesn't actually land, just hovers several mechanometers above a crumbling clearing that was probably once a park of some kind, and splits open his floor plates to drop Dead End unceremoniously.

There's a satisfying cloud of dust that kicks up at the impact, and he grins internally because now the glossy waxed finish Dead End had been fussing over during the trip is ruined.

Dead End curses from his new position on the ground and fires a few potshots upwards, but Astrotrain is already engaging his engines and gliding away. He doesn't want to stick around and find out what Dead End is doing on Autobot turf- either it's personal, in which case he does not want to know any more, or he's selling out the Decepticons, in which case, Astrotrain prefers letting him hang on his own.

He teleports back to base, and decides he might as well try to figure out where Skywarp's berth is because that's still his best idea for a prank of some sort. He'd also like to pretend that knowing the location will lead to interfacing on said berth for a change, but he highly doubts it's sturdy enough to hold his frame, even if she's willing to invite him to it.

There's a communal terminal in the main rec room, so that's where he starts. Even if the rec room itself is cramped and Astrotrain has to fold himself into an uncomfortable crouch to even maneuver his way inside.

The terminal is free, or at least the femme using it glances over her shoulder plating at his approach and decides to cut and run. He settles himself in front of the screen and logs in his credentials, a laborious process when each one of his digits is large enough to swipe a dozen glyphs on the keyboard with every tap.

His clearance level is still bottom-tier, and so when he finally manages to type Skywarp's designation into the terminal, all it will tell him is the bare essentials- her designation, rank, and that her status is active. It's somewhat of a surprise to see 'Air Commander' listed as her rank, because even his own dimension's Megatron had never replaced Starscream in that role, not even after the rest of the seekers had been decommissioned.

But he's not in his dimension anymore, Astrotrain reminds himself.

He clears out of her profile and brings up a map of the base instead. He has enough clearance for the seeker's barracks to be labeled, and he makes a note of the location. If she's really their Commander then she's probably got a private berthroom elsewhere, but hopefully he can make one of them tell him where that is.

The first seeker he finds, however, is Skywarp herself. She's in jet form, blasting around a corner in the hallway at a blistering pace for such an confined space.

He can't possibly dodge, so Astrotrain braces himself for the inevitable impact as she squawks in alarm, but she teleports herself in time.

The three jets behind her are not so lucky, slamming into his plating one after the other in a cacophony of yelling and crumpling metal. One of them managed to crack the glass of his cab with their nosecone, a sharp sting, but since they're currently on the floor writhing in a failed attempt at transformation, Astrotrain figures they're probably even.

Skywarp cackles behind him, and he turns away from the wrecked jets to look down at her. "I could _not_ have planned that better," she says with palpable satisfaction, fixing her optics on him as she grins.

Astrotrain glances back at the crumpled seekers at his pedes; one has progressed from 'smoking' to 'actively on fire'.

"Wanna get out of here?" he asks her. Whatever the fallout from this is, he's certain he's better off being elsewhere.

"Yeah," Skywarp says, still laughing, but ducks between his legs first to jeer at the downed mecha. "Gotta be better than that to beat me, you flying bricks!"

One of the less-mangled seekers attempts a lunge, but before they can connect Astrotrain feels a flare of unspace radiation, the pulling tugging squeezing sensation of her teleportation ability, and then he and Skywarp are elsewhere.

He glances around to get his bearings, and recognizes the ruined crystal garden they visited for their first encounter. It's just as dark and empty as before, the furrows left in the dust from last time undisturbed.

Skywarp is still laughing to herself, wings jerking in little flutters of movement against her back. "Seriously, your timing was _impeccable_ ," she says, and smiles up at him again. He finds himself smiling back, a pleasant tingle running through his emotional co-processor. "What were you doing there, anyway?" Her wings fan wide, bio-lights glimmering as her smile morphs into something more sultry. "Looking for me?"

Not exactly, but Astrotrain isn't going to turn down the obvious invitation. "Found you, too," he says, and crouches down onto one knee to get closer to her level. He had to mass-shift somewhat to even fit into the corridors leading to the seeker's barracks, but he's still large enough to tower over her.

"And what are you going to do now that you have me?" she says, stepping in close, frame open and inviting.

He reaches out for her in answer, already feeling a crackle of charge at the first brush of her plating. He likes that she's always so eager, so easy to rev up.

It's not a surprise that Skywarp stretches herself out along his front, reaching upwards for his faceplate. He's already figured out that she likes kissing. He dips his helm down and their intakes slot together, mismatched enough in size that he has to be constantly aware of what he's doing.

She hums a little into the kiss, and hums more when Astrotrain rubs the pads of his thumbs over the turbines in her chest. But he has to wince, breaking the kiss, when her hand presses right over the crack in his glass.

She frowns, and looks down between them. "You're damaged?" she says.

"It's fine," he replies, because it is. The cracks only hurt when there's enough pressure put on them, otherwise his sensornet is dulled to the sensation because the damage isn't critical.

"Well, I guess you left the others worse off," Skywarp says, not sounding entirely satisfied with the situation.

He doesn't know if it's because she's unhappy he damaged the mecha under her command, or is disappointed three of her seekers only managed to crack some glass. It's not something he really wants to dwell on, though, and so he rubs the tips of his digits against the base of her wings firmly.

She's immediately distracted, ex-venting warm puffs of air as her cooling fans click on. Charge starts lighting up his circuitry when she reciprocates with touches along his transformation seams, hands and intake both caressing his sensornet.

There's an old, rusty but intact bench not far and he guides her to it, murmuring for her to lie down.

She does so readily, stretching out her frame as if she's reclining on a luxurious berth and not a dirty, rickety bench. Her modesty panel opens before she's even finished settling, the crown of bio-lights around her valve shining bright as she spreads her thighs.

It's a very appealing sight, and solves the question of what she's in the mood for.

A message pops up on his HUD- incoming comm. He dismisses it with a flicker of irritation and moves to crouch over Skywarp, caging her in with hands planted on either side of her chassis.

Her optics run up the length of one of his arms slowly, bright red gaze almost a physical force when she reaches his faceplate and focuses her attention there. "You look so big like this," she tells him, voice husky with desire.

His engine rumbles deep in his frame at the transparent way she's regarding him, the heady thrill of being wanted. It's almost too much and he ducks his helm down, unceremoniously wedging himself between her thighs and licking her exposed valve.

She makes a noise halfway between a gasp and a laugh, then moans long and low when he doesn't relent, each lap of his glossa covering her entire array.

His comm pings him again and he growls. He knows very well that it's Dead End looking for a pickup, one he hasn't paid for. Not that there's much price Astrotrain would accept to get him to leave mid-frag, anyway.

Skywarp squirms underneath his glossa and he refocuses his attention on her, the electric taste of her building charge, the noises her vocalizer is letting out. He transforms away his modesty panel and lets his spike extend, a mix of relief and growing anticipation.

"Mm, that's looking big, too," she says.

He flicks his optics up to see her craning to get a look at his spike, and remembers all over again the differences in their sizes. She's so small, how can she ever fit him inside of her?

"Too big?" Astrotrain asks, reluctantly pulling his intake away from her valve. He's already mass-shifted smaller than his full size from earlier, a prickly strain across his frame. Going smaller would only make the feeling worse- but he'd put up with it, if it meant sinking into her ready valve.

"Um," she says, "Lemme check..." She moves down the bench until she's between his legs, hands reaching for his spike. A very tactile measurement system, and he moans at the stimulation when her digits close around him.

Another damn message pops up from his comm. It takes him an annoyingly long astrocycle to clear it off his HUD because he's distracted by Skywarp caressing his spike, something he'd much rather focus on. As soon as he dismisses the message, another one pops up. And another. They pile up, a mix of voice calls and glyph messages.

Astrotrain is going to offline Dead End for this, he really is.

He pulls away from Skywarp, sitting up instead.

"Hey!" she protests, and he ex-vents a sigh.

"Just, hold on," he says. "Gotta answer my comm."

"Is it Soundwave?" she asks, mirroring his sitting position, and Astrotrain shakes his head. "Megatron?"

"Dead End," he tells her. "He wants me to fly him around."

"Frag that, I outrank him. Put him on speaker," she says, tone suggesting she is not at all joking.

He's hesitant, but Skywarp teases a single digit over the head of his spike and gives him a _look_.

Astrotrain puts his comm on speaker.

" _Finally_!" Dead End's voice says. " _I've been calling for ages, now come pick_ -"

"Frag off, ground-pounder," Skywarp cuts him off with. "He's busy and if you comm again I'll shove my thruster up your pavement-kissing aft."

Dead End sputters on the other end, but she just looks at Astrotrain and says, "Now hang up before I lose my charge."

He hangs up.

"You couldn't mute your comm?" she asks.

He shakes his head. "It's locked," he says, and hopes she doesn't ask further. Megatron- the real one- had not liked his soldiers to be able to ignore him, especially the ones so lucky to be used as his personal transports.

Skywarp gives him an odd look at that, confused and thoughtful, but doesn't say anything else. Partly because he curls a hand around her shoulder and guides her back down, wanting to forget the interruption and get back to clanging.

She goes easily, legs spreading wide and still only just able to accommodate him between them.

"Oh, right," she says, optics flicking down to where his spike juts between their frames, "So you _do_ have to shrink some more, sorry."

Astrotrain ex-vents, annoyed by Dead End's interruption and slightly on edge from the reminder of his dimension's Megatron. He doesn't really want to mass-shift any further.

"...Or," she says, putting a hand on his forearm, voice uncharacteristically hesitant, "You didn't hate the subspace thing, did you?"

He hasn't forgotten, of course, but it'd started to fade in importance after two relatively normal frags. Had he hated 'the subspace thing'? No. But does it make him uneasy to stick his spike into another mecha's personal subspace pocket? Yes.

Skywarp is watching him intently, lower lip bitten between her denta.

"Alright," he finds himself saying. "Don't I still need to fit, though?" He distinctly remembers spreading her valve open on his spike before she sprang the subspace surprise on him.

She's visibly relived by his answer. "Not if I do this," she says, and there's a flash of purple light, the tingle of unspace radiation.

And between her spread thighs where her valve had been moments before is a- a _void_ , a slash in the mesh of the universe right in the middle of her chassis. It is undoubtedly the freakiest thing Astrotrain has ever seen.

Normally only mecha who have specially-tuned sensor mods actually _see_ subspace pockets in use. For everybot else, objects more or less just seem to appear from the air when summoned, maybe with a bit of a glow or whiff of transwarp radiation.

But what Skywarp is doing is very definitely not standard, anyway.

"It doesn't... hurt?" Astrotrain asks, wary of actually touching the portal. She'd liked it last time, and surely she wouldn't offer it up again if it wasn't good for her, but he's having a hard time getting his processor to accept that the void in her chassis is not some kind of hideous damage.

"Nah," she says, and tugs at his forearm until he lets her move his hand, guiding him down to where the portal glows faintly purple, competing with her red bio-lights. His digit slides from familiar, smooth plating to brush against the edge of the void.

It feels... Strange, but not unpleasant. The edge crackles against his touch like he's brushed a naked live wire, but without the sting. He ventures further, dipping his digit into the actual portal and her personal subspace beyond it.

Skywarp gasps, and he snatches his hand back. But she's still holding onto his forearm plating and she urges him back, hips bucking up as if it's her array and not her subspace pocket she wants him to touch. "It's good," she says, "You're good. Come on, please."

He lowers his hand again, a little more confident that despite how freaky this looks, at least he isn't hurting her by doing it. He slides a digit more deeply inside the portal, not really sure what to expect- he hadn't exactly been taking notes the last time- and not really sure how to sum up the feeling once it hits him.

Her subspace doesn't feel like a void, like empty air. It's closer to the feeling of being near an unshielded sparkfield, like the space within is full of particles vibrating and shimmering, too small to be distinct but lighting up his sensornet in buzzing waves.

It's not unpleasant, though it's definitely nothing like the simple friction of a valve.

"Yeah," Skywarp coaxes him, clearly enjoying whatever it feels like on her side of things, "Come on, keep going."

Astrotrain makes a decision and positions himself so his hips are closer to hers, spike hanging in the air over the open portal. If it was weird to watch his digits disappear into the void of her subspace, it's downright unsettling to watch his spike sink in, obscured by the purple glow of transwarp radiation. The feeling of it is worth it, though; there's no hot wet slide of mesh, no jolts of node-against-node, no tight pressure from straining calipers- but what there _is_ , is an overwhelming sensation like his sensornet is being directly stimulated all at once, almost impossible to parse out except that it feels _good_.

Underneath him she keens, faceplate twisted in an expression of pleasure that almost reads as agony.

It makes him falter, but Skywarp bucks up against him like she's seeking even more from him, charge crackling over her plating and fans roaring.

He pulls back and shivers at the feeling of air on his spike, the awareness of being only part of the way inside this dimension properly. Then he rocks back into the subspace pocket, groaning at the strange feeling as it envelopes his spike once more.

This is absolutely the freakiest, kinkiest thing he has ever done- and yet Astrotrain finds that he's wholesparkedly enjoying it despite the taboo nature, or maybe even because of it.

The way her subspace feels, he doesn't even really need to thrust to be stimulated. There's no true friction, after all, just that strange humming bombardment against his spike that's simultaneously too much and not enough. He can't keep still, however, not when his processor can't even decide if it wants him to press forward for more or pull away.

Skywarp doesn't seem to be complaining if the way her vocalizer is moaning and blurting static is anything to go on, even if he isn't paying as much attention to the rest of her frame right now as he otherwise would be, in a normal interface.

He picks up his pace a little, a bit unsettled to realize that the open portal means his hips can't connect against hers even when he should be hilting his spike; his inguinal plating brushes without sound against the crackling edges of the void, instead, almost like it wants more of his frame inside.

That's a thought too far for his processor to follow, and Astrotrain shakes his helm to clear it away.

He shifts the weight of his chassis onto one hand, and uses the other to grope at Skywarp, reveling in the charge snapping off her smooth plating, the way his circuits light up to see her a dishevelled mess, no trace at all of the smooth Decepticon warrior or the cackling prankster in her now.

Her cooling fans hiccup, vocalizer cutting out mid-yell, and electricity sparks up from deep inside her frame, barely visible between the seams of her dark plating.

Astrotrain doesn't falter as she overloads, if anything he thrusts into her faster. When her optics seem like they're focusing again he manages to ask, "Can you handle it if I'm full-size?"

He does have to pause in order for her to answer, vocalizer clicking as she tries to reset it. "Pit yes," she says after a moment, somehow still eager for more despite the faint, sweet smell of burning coolant he's starting to notice rising from her chassis.

If he were a better mech, he'd take that as a sign to stop. But all he does is unfold the rest of his mass, relieving the prickly-tight feeling constricting his frame. His spike increases to its full size, forcing the edges of the portal to expand as well to accommodate its girth.

Skywarp turns her helm to the side, optics shuttered, intake open and gasping.

The subspace portal is now covering nearly half her abdomen, crackling purple edges licking at the glass of her cockpit, and it's still only barely large enough for his spike to slide through. He's never spiked anyone at his full size before, not actually penetrating them, and the sight of her so small yet _taking_ him makes him burn all the hotter.

He has to be mindful that he doesn't crush her with his weight, but that's his only concern. He's not fragging her valve so there's no worry about being too large, too rough, about whether she can take him all the way.

Astrotrain feels himself approaching the point of no return, capacitors so full of charge it's discharging off his frame in licks of static, lighting up his sensornet and every circuit that can feel pleasure. He pumps his hips, driving himself into her deep, hard.

Overload crashes over him and his frame locks up in pleasure, barely aware of anything else around him except dimly the sudden shock of air on his spike, the loss of her chassis touching any part of his.

He has to stay in place several long astrocycles as his system recalibrates itself, not quite a soft reboot but pretty close. When he can move again he first confirms that Skywarp isn't underneath him anymore, and then eases himself into a better position to look around and see where she has gone.

He finds her on the ground a couple of mechanometers away, lying flat on her back, limbs spread all akimbo. There's smoke rising from her frame, a thin wisp that reeks of burned coolant. The subspace portal is closed, thankfully.

He shuffles over on his knees, a little bit apprehensive- but aside from the coolant failure, she still seems to be functional, though knocked out by the looks of it.

Relieved that he hasn't fragged her into deactivation, he slumps down to sit next to her on the ground, keeping an optic on her condition. That's twice now that Astrotrain _has_ fragged her into a hard reboot, something he never really thought actually happened outside of trashy vids or, at least, hardline connections. And this time he hadn't even touched her array to do it, just her subspace, which is another boost to his ego even if he's uncertain how it even works.

She starts coming around after only a few more moments, frame twitching minutely in her boot-up sequence before her optics online, and she vocalizes a groan.

"You teleported," Astrotrain tells her, because that's pretty much the only explanation he has for why she was under him on the bench and then suddenly wasn't.

Skywarp groans again. "Lucky I didn't warp your spike with me," she says, and sits up gingerly.

That's an incredibly alarming thought. "That can happen?" he asks, eyeing her with a certain degree of suspicion.

"Dunno," she says with a shrug, smiling at him broad and lazy. "Ah, Primus, that was just what I needed."

"You do that a lot?" Astrotrain says, "With your subspace, I mean."

Some of the looseness falls away from her frame, wings twitching upwards. She props up a knee and rests her arm on it, a casual pose with an edge. "Not often," she says, "Really only with my trine. But you teleport, you get it?" Her voice strays into a question at the end, even if it isn't phrased as one.

"Not really," he admits, shaking his helm. "I've only had the multiverse drive a couple of months. And I don't think it's, uh, like what you do."

Skywarp hums thoughtfully. "It's Quintesson, right?"

He nods, feeling some of his own post-frag afterglow leech away at the reminder. The multiverse drive is irreplaceably useful, of course, but it's also alien to his systems, a parasite worming its way through his circuitry, feeding off energy from his very spark.

"Thought so," she says. "I saw some of the connections when I was filling your alt-mode with lube. Did you mean to have it hooked up to your laser core twice?"

"I didn't install it," Astrotrain says.

"Well duh _you_ didn't, but Shock- um," she cuts herself off, frowning. "Well, Hook has clearance for my drive now, maybe he can poke around yours, too."

He shrugs, uncomfortable with the idea but not feeling the need to explain. This is the first time they've talked after fragging, he realizes, and feels suddenly awkward.

When he doesn't answer Skywarp gets up to her pedes and stretches herself out, the kind of motion that looks effortlessly elegant on a frame like hers. "See you later?" she says once settled again.

There's an opportunity here, he can see it. If he offered a second round she'd almost certainly take him up on it, and might not turn him down if he made a non-interfacing overture. But he doesn't know if he wants either; he's still sated from his overload, and it's been so long since he had anyone he might possibly consider an actual friend he doesn't know how to go about just... spending time together.

"Yeah," he settles on, "Okay."

She gives him an inscrutable look and then flips into her transformation sequence, engines flaring bright and hot as she takes off.

He stands in the empty ruins of the crystal garden until he loses sight of her, dark paint blending in with the night, the glow of her thrusters just another glimmer of starlight.

Astrotrain also transforms but instead of taking to the sky immediately, he opens his comm to Dead End's frequency. ::You still need a ride?::

He ends up filling her berthroom- an entire habsuite, really- with glass pips. He needed to source glass sturdy enough for the burn of leaving atmosphere for his own repairs, and found an abandoned factory that no one had looted because all they apparently manufactured was glass beads, useless except as trinkets. It's not a very original prank, but the only other idea Astrotrain's processor was offering up involved explosives and he figures it would send the wrong message to try deactivating her.

Skywarp sends him an image file, a picture of her reclining partially-submerged in a sea of colorful glass beads like it's some luxurious bath and not an annoyance, lips curled into a smirk and optics playful, challenging. ::That all you got?::

::You haven't found it yet, then:: he replies.

::Found what?:: Her tone shifts, sharpening with suspicion.

Astrotrain smiles to himself and doesn't reply. In truth, there isn't anything for her to find- he really did just fill her hab with glass pips. But he thinks she's probably the type to work herself up into a frenzy trying to figure out what else there is, especially since she's pulled so many of her own pranks and can come up with far more ideas than he could.

::Astrotrain:: she whines, ::What did you do?::

::You'll see:: he says. After a moment's deliberation he tags the picture she sent to be saved in his visual core, rather than compressed into general memory. The glimmers of bright glass set off her dark plating nicely, and he likes the idea of having it as a sort of trophy.

Skywarp cuts the connection, and he snickers out loud.

Megatron calls a general meeting to announce that Cybertron's one remaining spacebridge will be opened for a period to allow supplies and to gather in missing troops, and that they will all need to be on high alert for treachery.

Astrotrain watches as their leader rants and raves about a coming threat, about needing to be prepared. Most of the Decepticons gathered around think he's talking about the Autobots, of course, or perhaps a second wave of Quintessons- but he knows better.

There's a new mech that he doesn't recognize standing at Megatron's side, tarpaulin hanging off his frame and something on his helm in a strange mimicry of alien fashion. It's not up to Astrotrain to keep track of his fellow Decepticons, not his place to question Megatron's decisions on who moves through the ranks, but he can see the uneasy tension between this new mech and Soundwave flanking Megatron's other side.

The Soundwave of his dimension had rebelled against Megatron in the end, working in secret with Shockwave to take down their leader. Astrotrain has his reservations about whether this version of Megatron is truly all that he claims, but going against him is sure to end just as poorly.

The more Megatron hammers home the point of needing to be vigilant, the more he feels his fear about Megatron- the true one- gaining access to this dimension like ice forming over his plating, a cold inescapable creep that may well leave him paralyzed. The spacebridge might be something that can be tracked, something he can use to find them...

"Hey," Skywarp whispers directly into his audial.

He twitches at her sudden appearance, but doesn't swat her off his shoulder.

"You're a jerk, you know that?" she says, but her voice is light, more playful than upset. It's a welcome distraction from the cold chill of his thoughts. 

Astrotrain slants her a look, lips twitching up into a smug smile. "Found it yet?"

She reaches one of her tiny hands into his neck cabling and pinches, vicious but without much damage. "There wasn't anything but glass," she says, "And I'm offended you'd try the old 'pretend there's something worse' trick on _me_."

He can't help the rumble of laughter that escapes his frame; she _does_ look actually offended, in a sort of teasing way, but he's sure she didn't figure out it was a trick as quickly as she's now pretending.

His laughter has the unfortunate side effect of drawing Megatron's attention to him, the still-damaged optic searing like a laser beam. All of Astrotrain's struts lock up, even his fuel pump stuttering into stillness at the force of his scrutiny.

Megatron sneers at his assembled soldiers and snarls, "Dismissed!"

Astrotrain bows his helm but doesn't otherwise move; he'll need to wait for the smaller scaled mecha to leave, first, or risk stepping on one of them.

"Not you, Dead End," Megatron says. "Astrotrain, stay as well."

Dead End glares at Astrotrain as if he's the source of all his problems, but obediently turns back from where he was attempting to slink away with the rest of the crowd.

"What is the status of your assignment?" Megatron asks. Demands, really- Megatron has never 'asked' for anything from Astrotrain, only given orders and expected obedience.

"Progressing well," Astrotrain says, trying to project confidence without tempting Megatron to pile on more demands. He's not an engineer, but all he has to do is fix the scavenged Quintesson weapon to a functional state, a task he assumes he was given because the multiverse drive currently integrated to his system is also of Quintesson origin.

Megatron turns to Dead End. "Is it?"

"Well, it'd be faster if we had an actual scientist," Dead End says blandly. "Spacebus here isn't exactly an engineering genius."

Astrotrain activates one of the ion cannons on his forearm, the threatening hum enough to make Dead End take the slightest shuffle backwards.

"I don't want excuses," Megatron says, voice deepening to a growl. "I want results. If you can't deliver, I'm sure the Other One will be... _pleased_ to see you returned to him for punishment."

Terror fills him, spark quaking, processor sublimating all unnecessary functions. The fact that this Megatron can't send Astrotrain back to his own dimension, his own Megatron, without opening up himself for attack as well is of very little help in taming the fear surging through his circuitry.

"Skywarp!" Megatron barks. "Get down from there." Astrotrain hadn't realized she was still perched on his shoulder, but he feels the loss of her weight as she jumps down to stand before Megatron. "Go over the Line and find out what the Autobots are using the spacebridge for. They're planning something, I want to know _what_."

"Of course, Lord Megatron," she says with a respectful dip of her helm, wings a sharp, stiff angle.

"And you," Megatron says, turning back to Astrotrain, "See that you bring me results before I run out of patience."

He nods.

"Get out of my sight," Megatron says, and turns on his heel like he's already dismissed them from his processor entirely.

Astrotrain forcibly cycles air through his ventilation system, and scoops up Dead End so they can get back to the workshop and resume working as quickly as possible.

It takes the better part of a cycle before he shakes the fear still clinging to him. He's realized that part of the reaction was because Megatron had threatened him, not just reminded him of his original Megatron's actions. Knowing that doesn't really help.

He could just leave. Tune the multiverse drive to another dimension and jump there instead, where Megatron will have no reason to go after him.

But Astrotrain is a Decepticon by choice- he believed in what Megatron was doing, in the beginning, and he has no reason to betray this new Megatron who rescued him. If he really _can_ stop the other Megaton, the original one, then he owes his allegiance.

Leaving would also, he admits with a flicker of selfish guilt, mean stopping what he's doing with Skywarp. There's probably _a_ Skywarp in whichever dimension he might pick at random, but there's no guarantee she'd be interested in him the way this one is. Having a frag-buddy is a pretty small incentive to sticking around, but it doesn't hurt.

"Look," Dead End says, up on the catwalk that wraps around workshop. It puts him on a level with Astrotrain's helm, a fact that Dead End seems to enjoy. "I hate you, and you hate me."

Astrotrain nods, because that is one of the few things they agree on.

"But you can get past the wall without raising any alarms," Dead End says. "So what'll it take to work out a deal?" He no longer has the molecular acid, not that it was a very effective bargaining tool to begin with. Astrotrain is just disappointed he didn't confiscate it himself, but got beat to the punch by Skywarp wanting her property back.

He regards Dead End silently for a moment. "I'm not the only flier," he says, because that's really all you need to get over the wall, if you take care to avoid the sentries. "Not the only one who teleports, either."

"Oh, right, cause I'm going to ask _Skywarp_ to pop me over to Autobot turf," Dead End says. "Even if she agreed to do it without turning my insides out, she'd tell the whole base what I was doing in an astrocycle flat."

Astrotrain isn't sure that's a fair assumption, but he also doesn't hear very much gossip at all. Maybe she would spread it around. She does seem to be just about everywhere in the base. "What _are_ you doing?" he asks, a little bit out of curiosity but more to point the conversation away from Skywarp and what she may or may not be gossiping about.

"Nothing," Dead End says quickly. He fidgets for an astrocycle, looking very shifty and uncomfortable. "You weren't there for the Quintessons, okay? Things were different. Factions didn't... they weren't all that mattered."

Astrotrain can tell this is a sore spot, and wants to pry it open to watch Dead End squirm. He's never been very gifted at doing that sort of thing with words, though. "You're fragging an Autobot," he says bluntly. It makes sense, actually, when he considers Dead End's behavior since returning to this dimension.

Dead End looks like he's just swallowed an intakeful of synth-en, faceplate pinched in a sour expression. "Least I'm not fragging a _lunatic_ ," he shoots back, as if it's any sort of real comeback.

Astrotrain just ex-vents a huff, amused that Dead End thinks he's going to be bothered by a weak insult like that. Then he considers that Dead End is going to be highly motivated to keep seeing this Autobot- at least as long as they keep clanging, anyway- and will probably not want word of it spread around base, considering Megatron might well brand him a traitor for fragging the enemy.

"Ten astroliters of high-grade, per trip," he says.

"That's absurd," Dead End says flatly.

"You want to see your little berthmate, or not?" Astrotrain asks.

"He's not little," Dead End grumbles, so quietly it's clearly not meant to be picked up by his audials. "Five astroliters."

"Ten."

"Six," Dead end says.

"Ten."

"Seven."

"Ten," Astrotrain says. In truth he doesn't know what he'd even _do_ with that much high-grade if he's getting paid for every trip; he doesn't like being overcharged enough to hoard it for himself and there's only so much contraband he wants to trade for. Knowing how much of a pain it's going to be for Dead End to get it all, though, that makes him adamant not to haggle any lower.

"That's not how negotiations work," Dead End says. "Eight astroliters."

Astrotrain simply levels him an unimpressed look and says, "Twelve."

"Fine, you piston-head!" Dead End growls. "Ten astroliters of high-grade. But I expect you to pick me up when I call, this time."

"I was busy," Astrotrain says, allowing innuendo to creep smugly into his vocalizer.

Dead End scowls. "And _don't_ tell me any more about _that_."

He returns to the main hangar after a long cycle to find Skywarp sitting on the edge of his berth, swamped by the extra space around her.

"You really recharge here?" she asks, faceplate pulling an expression of distaste.

Astrotrain shrugs. Here he's got a berth that holds his weight, uncomfortable though it is, and he found some scrap to set up a bit of a dividing wall between the niche he's claimed and the rest of the hangar. It's palatial compared to some of the places he's been stationed. And he _fits_ in the hangar, his size not a problem against arching ceilings built to accommodate starships.

"Yikes," she says, "I thought Blitzwing was joking. Anyway, you free?"

He's honestly surprised Blitzwing even knows his berth is out here; they hadn't talked much, finding little in common other than having two alt-modes.

"I'm free," Astrotrain confirms, anticipation curling through his circuits.

She flashes a smile. "Great, because I have a job offer for you."

It causes him to falter. Not a request for interface, a job. "What is it?" he asks, voice gruff to hide his disappointment.

"You help me move some cargo, and I'll pay you for your time," Skywarp says.

He can't be surprised, he tells himself, this is how he's always been most useful. And she's not even asking him as a favor, not telling him to do it just because they've fragged. "How far, and how much am I carrying?"

His fuel levels might hold if it's not too far, otherwise he fully intends to send her to the mess to fetch energon for him.

"About three hundred cybertonnes, from here to Tarn and back," she says. "You can do that before sun-up, right?"

Astrotrain runs the numbers. It's doable, but he'll have to push himself harder than he'd like, especially if the cargo is too delicate to teleport. "I'll need to refuel first," he tells her.

"So you'll do it?" she says, optics brightening.

He nods. "Get some energon for me, and I'll head out."

She flicks her wings, an annoyed little gesture. "Fine, but I'm taking it out from your ration," she says.

He hadn't expected otherwise, and shrugs. Skywarp teleports away and he's alone in his makeshift berthroom again, the constant noise of the hangar a familiar backdrop. It's really not such a bad place to recharge, is it? The cleaning drones run through when they do the rest of the hangar, so at least it's mostly free of grime and the threat of rust.

Then he considers what he saw of her own habsuite when he was filling it with glass pips, and figures they just have different standards. So what if he doesn't have a pile of soft-looking alien weavings on his berth, or displays of image-captures up on the walls? He just needs a flat place to recharge, and this works fine.

She returns with a soft _vop_ of energy, hands occupied with a cube that's definitely larger than standard. "You really get _twenty_ astroliters as your share?" she says.

Astrotrain takes the cube from her. In her hands it looked large, in his, it's still small. "I've got big tanks," he says.

"Yeah, I know," she says with a snicker.

He hides an answering smile by draining the cube in one gulp, all five astroliters of it. She pulls a second cube out of her subspace and his whole frame sort of twitches, a totally involuntary reaction. He'd been inside that subspace, fragged her in a way he hadn't even known was possible, and here she is just using the pocket dimension the way it's meant to be used like it's no deal at all.

He takes the second cube without saying anything, and the third, but puts the fourth aside into his own subspace after she offers it. He'd rather have some energon to replenish with after this trip than start out with a totally full tank.

"Alright," Astrotrain says, "I'm ready."

When she steps inside his shuttle form he can't resist slamming the interior door separating his cab in her faceplate, making her jerk back to avoid getting caught. She snorts in laughter, unlike his passengers' usual reactions.

"Classic," she says approvingly.

He slides the door open again, and lets her take a seat without further hassle.

Skywarp settles herself in, legs propped up on his dashboard like she's on a pleasure jaunt and not whatever business that requires her to move a couple hundred cybertronnes worth of goods in the dead of night. "I'll give you the coordinates to teleport in, but you'll have to fly back," she says.

"You don't like my portals," he says before he can stop himself.

"Pit no, I really don't," she says with an exaggerated shudder. "They're horrible. I don't know how you stand them. Worse than spacebridges and I thought _those_ were bad."

He's really never felt any ill effects from his multiverse drive, and spacebridges barely feel like anything at all, for all that the swirling lights look impressive.

"But," she continues, "It's faster."

That is apparently her entire reasoning. "You could teleport us," he says.

Skywarp shrugs, the movement stiff despite her relaxed posture. "You're heavy," she says, and doesn't look like she's going to change her mind.

"What are the coordinates?" he asks.

He watches her through his optical feed when he opens the first portal and enters the void of unspace, but she doesn't seem all that unsettled, or uncomfortable.

"Do you always have to go to unspace first?" she asks, peering out his windows intently. Unspace swirls and writhes around them, unsettling and unreal but ultimately harmless.

"Yeah," he says, and considers how being teleported by her had felt. "You don't."

"Mm, no," she says, "There's some kind of in-between when I warp, I guess, but not like this."

He opens the second portal, the one that'll drop him at the coordinates she gave him. Wherever they are, it's not Tarn- the terrain is all wrong, no sign of a large city (or the remains of one) in sight.

"This the right place?" he asks, pinging his location system to confirm the coordinates match. There aren't any satellites above this Cybertron anymore, he remembers only when the query comes back unfulfilled. There's no way to guarantee they won't be used by the other side as they spin in orbit around the planet and so none have been launched.

"Yup!" Skywarp says, "Head for that big crystal formation, the one that looks like Sky-Byte's helm."

"You said it was in Tarn," he says, though he follows her directions.

"No, I said it was as far away as Tarn," she replies. "Do you really wanna know more than you have to?"

A good point, although he'll figure out the general location just from the flight back, or by checking a global map. Still, it's a little bit of extra plausible deniability.

She spends a moment talking to someone over her comm, and then directs him where exactly to land.

Astrotrain is a little bit surprised when she doesn't leave him once they've arrived. Most mecha do- he's not going to let himself be stolen like a non-sentient shuttle but they have no use for him besides transport, so they don't think twice about walking off to finish their deals.

But Skywarp just coordinates via comm, and watches from his interior as a pair of mechs stuff his cargo area full of crate after crate after crate. He's not sure if she's doing it on purpose, if she has any idea what it's like to be treated as nothing more than a mode of transportation- or if she's just lazy and comfortable in her seat.

He doesn't ask.

When the cargo is secured and he's in the air again, engines grumbling a little under the weight, he turns his holo-avatar to her pointedly. "How much are you paying me for this?"

She peels her optics away from his window. "I was wondering when you'd bring that up," she says. "You always get half the job done before setting the price?"

He tips his holo-avatar to the side, somewhere between a nod and a shrug. "I like having leverage," he says.

"Even against me?" Skywarp says, feigning a hurt tone. "I thought we were better friends than that."

No one's called themself his friend in centuries and hearing it now sends a flutter through him, a spark of warmth, because she's teasing but- but she really is his friend, he figures.

"Business is business," he says, because regardless of whether they're friends or not, he's learned his lesson well about making deals with nothing to back them up.

"Fair enough," she says easily. "You've got your comm locked on, right? I've got a program that'll circumvent that."

Astrotrain considers this. On the one hand, it's treasonous to disable a punishment Megatron handed out. On the other hand, it was the Megatron of his own dimension who locked his comm, not the one he's currently serving.

"Let me see the coding," he says.

"I guess?" Skywarp says, apparently misunderstanding his intentions, "It's kind of a mess, 'cause Screamer was really worked up when he wrote it and then there was only so much TC could do to clean it up later... It works, though!"

"So I can check it's not a virus," he says.

"Oh," she says as understanding dawns, and then looks actually offended, chest puffing up, wings angling out. "I wouldn't do that!"

"You did before," Astrotrain points out.

"As a _joke_ ," she says, stressing the glyph with an unnecessary amount of force. "It's not funny if I give you a virus like this."

The thing is, he actually might believe her. She seems happy to laugh whenever things go poorly for others, but hasn't done anything outright harmful- at least, not to him. It doesn't mean he's just going to accept an unknown program without inspecting it first, though.

"Let me see the code," he says, "If it's clean, _and_ it works, I'll take the program as payment." To underscore this decision, he slides back the cover on his secondary data interface array, the one that allows him to hardline with mecha of average size class without needing an adaptor set.

She could send the program via comm-link, if it's a small enough package, but then he'd have to download it to his own system before inspecting it. This is safer, if more intimate.

Skywarp looks surprised, optics twitching from his exposed array to his holo-avatar, before a confident smirk crosses her faceplate. "You just want the excuse to get up in my ports, don't you?"

"I'm not accepting a program I can't inspect first," he says. He won't lie and say he isn't interested, but a hardline interface doesn't _have_ to be anything more than a data transfer.

She hums, like she doesn't believe that's his only motivation, and moves out of her sprawl across his seat to stand in front of the dash. Her digits brush over the coil of his cable and he has to tamp down on the sudden urge to suggest skipping the program transfer, and say he'll accept an interface as payment after all. It's been too many cycles since he's hardlined for anything but necessity.

A panel just below one of her chest turbines transforms away, revealing her own hardline array- tipped in gold-alloyed titanium for the smoothest connection, a luxury he's not surprised by after seeing her spike and valve mods.

"I'll have to do all the plugging, I guess," she says, and gently tugs his data jack to release it from the housing.

She inserts it into her port with no preamble, none of the teasing build-up a recreational interface would encourage.

The connection spawns and stabilizes in an astrocycle, a one-way bridge from his processor into hers. It's instinct to send a ping to her system, to create a pulse map of her circuits even at the shallow level she's allowing him.

"Queueing it up now," she says, her vocalizer rendering her voice with a slight shake to it.

The program is thrust forward through her firewalls and Astrotrain queries its contents, unfolds the data within. He's not a coding expert by any means, but he knows how to run a lightweight antivirus scan, even if the target isn't properly in his system.

The antivirus crunches, and comes up clean. The coding itself is as messy as she implied it would be, but a quick test suggests it'll compile without any fatal errors or traps.

"Okay," he says, "Plug in."

Skywarp fumbles when she's inserting her data jack, digits skidding and rubbing against the metal of his port, enough to make him shiver and check that he's not in danger of flying into anything in the near future. As soon as they're plugged in on both sides he knows why; she was able to hide it just receiving his cable, but once the connection is reciprocal it's clear that she's already got a charge building up in her circuits.

It makes his own system leap into action, interface protocols overriding his intention to keep this a simple data transfer. She's just so _easy_ for it, zero to a hundred in astrocycles flat, and he can't manage to deny himself in the face of such enthusiasm.

Astrotrain opens himself up for the program to download, tagging it so it doesn't get lost, and opens a couple more sections of his processor that aren't needed just to receive the program. Then he sends a ping to her in invitation, a quick surge of energy and a small packet of useless junk data. She can shut him out easily, keep this strictly as a non-erotic connection-

But she doesn't. She opens up the next few layers of her system, allowing him in deep enough through her interface server to get a sense of her processor churning away- so quick and flighty, so different to his own- to feel the crackling excitement as her capacitors light up, eagerly accepting more and more of a charge.

He sends her another pulse of his own energy, a packet of sensory data, and Skywarp sways in place, faceplate going slack and blank as she focuses inwards. He can feel her pushing the program at him as fast as her bandwidth allows, his own system curling with pleasure around the waves of data filling up his interface server.

Just by virtue of his greater size, he carries a greater charge than what she can generate on her own. But his system builds it slower compared to her mad dash to overload, charge fed through his cable in irregular pulses to jolt her circuits, drawing it out regardless of how quickly she might prefer to reach peak charge.

There's an irregularity he can feel in her system, something sucking up charge only to spit it back out, a wavering, unpredictable push-pull of energy and foreign programming he's never encountered before. When he directs a tentative probe in its direction she moans almost like she's overloading already, hands clawing at his dashboard.

The program finishes downloading in a rush and Astrotrain barely has time to check that it hasn't corrupted before she's pushing more and more at him, fragmented bits of data and coding, meaningless by themselves but so _delicious_ to have sparking along his wires with her charge flooding his system. He's distantly aware that his frame is still flying more-or-less level, that his vocalizer is making noise, but even the feeling of her hand caressing the area around his port is distant compared to the fire in his processor.

She overloads without any real warning, presence suddenly bright-hot white across their connection, impossible to look away from even as it burns.

The resulting surge isn't enough to tip him over but his capacitors strain, servos all along his frame buzzing with the need to move. His optical feed is growing staticy, sensornet confused. It might have been smarter to land before offering up a hardline but he certainly can't manage to do so _now_ without crashing.

Skywarp twitches against him, rubbing herself against the curve of his dashboard. He can't see the cables spooling between them at this angle but he can feel the connection, the erotic sparks and jolts as her system races to catch back up to him, spurred on by the irregular pulse in her own circuitry.

He sends her pulse after pulse of charge, targeting the deepest layers she's let him into, throws so much data at her his RAM starts to feel overfull from all the use.

There's temperature warnings pinging him, but he can't tell where they're coming from- his frame, or hers? The air in his cab, or the straining burn of his engines, or maybe the world outside his frame is on fire and he just doesn't care.

Astrotrain's system stutters out when she pushes a huge chunk of data at him, all of it sensory- for a split astrocycle he feels her frame as if it's his own, quivering with need, burning with ecstasy, from shivering wingtip to aching laser core. The surge of energy that follows on its heels crackles through his circuits like a physical blow, wiping his processor entirely blank for an instant as he overloads.

He's somehow still in the air when he regains some semblance of equilibrium, though he's listing and far closer to the ground than he should be.

Skywarp shudders, frame draped over his dashboard. They're still connected by the hardline cables, but the data connection has dropped back to almost nil.

Her vocalizer clicks, then crackles like a poorly-tuned radio. "I think you fried me," she says once she's reset it.

He's feeling pretty fried, himself, and hums in response. He flinches when she disconnects her jack from his port, shivers when she removes his jack and returns it to its housing. She stumbles backwards until she finds a seat and then collapses, fans still whirring away inside of her frame to cut through the heated air of his cab.

Astrotrain can still feel an echo of her in his processor, scraps of code and data tagged with her distinct identity pinging randomly as his system tries to set itself to rights. It'll all get sorted when he defrags and get purged before long, but for right now there's an intangible connection between them that's like an itch under his plating, aching to be dug out.

It's why casual partners tend not to hardline interface. You pick up too much from them, leave too much of yourself behind.

Neither of them says anything for a long stretch, just watch the sky streak past as he flies. He unpacks the comm program when he has the RAM to spare and installs it, coding integrating into his system smoothly.

Technically the program doesn't shut off his comm, he sees when he activates it, but rather it mutes all the pings and messages so he isn't alerted until he deliberately checks. It's good enough for him, a sharp relief to have even this small sliver of control back.

"Thanks," he says.

Skywarp hums a question, blinking her optics online. She might have been dozing off, he thinks, and instead of being resentful that he doesn't have the luxury he finds himself thinking, good. She can probably use the rest.

"The program works," he clarifies. "We're even."

Her lips curve into a broad smile, something far too warm to be directed at him. "Told you it was good," she says. "Starscream's a glitch, but he knows his way around coding."

He thinks about the way she says his designation, the rank she holds, and ventures a guess. "He was part of your trine?" He still doesn't really get how seeker groups work, if it's something like a combiner's gestalt or more of a sparkbond, or perhaps just soldiers grouped in units, but being around so many seekers in this universe has clued him in to them being important. He's never seen Skywarp in the company of that sort of trio, not the way the other seekers flock together.

"Is," she says firmly. He seems to recall pretty clearly that the Starscream of this world had been somehow reformatted into a Quintesson monster, and then been blasted out of the sky with the force of two Matrixes, but he doesn't contradict her statement.

She's silent for a long stretch of time before saying in a quiet voice, "Did any of us make it, in your universe?"

Astrotrain isn't expecting the question, but he considers carefully how to answer. He hadn't recognized her designation from his own dimension, hadn't recognized the other one she mentioned earlier.

And Starscream isn't a story that really has an ending, not one that he knows. One cycle he was still besides Megatron, second in command of the army despite all the other seekers having been consigned to the smelting pits, and the next he was simply gone. Megatron likes public executions, especially of senior officers- it's hard to imagine he simply offlined Starscream and didn't tell anyone, but the alternatives have never made much sense either.

"I don't know," he tells her. Maybe the same can be said of her Starscream, too, at least when it comes to not accepting his deactivation for herself.

She doesn't look satisfied, but doesn't press him for more.

They fly in silence until the glowing lights of the Decepticon base stain the horizon, and then Skywarp snaps into action, checking on the cargo and asking him about what sensor readings he's getting, if his engines will rattle apart if he pushes the pace.

He gets annoyed at her pestering and dumps her out of her seat, but she just laughs and asks if that's the best he can do.

When he finally gets to recharge later, his berth gives an ominous creak and then collapses beneath him. A barrel of paint tucked away on a rafter up above him tips over at the crash, splattering him in high-vis orange from helm to pede.

Astrotrain laughs from his new place on the floor. At least it's not glitter, this time.

The spacebridge swirls to life, bright gleaming energon-blue. Astrotrain watches, tense, but all that happens is mecha with hover-carts of crates start to shuffle into view through the portal.

There's no sign of inter-dimensional interference, no sign of Megatron taking notice of the flare in transwarp radiation.

At least, not yet.

Other than the anxiety churning away deep in his emotional co-processor, the whole event is mundane, boring. He sits in shuttle form and gets loaded up with cargo, watching through his external optical feed as Decepticons previously stationed on far-flung worlds get their first view of a (more or less) restored Cybertron.

Skywarp is one of the seekers doing tight patrol circles overhead, looking for Autobot interference. The spacebridge and the half-klik radius around it is the only truly neutral spot on this divided Cybertron, more heavily guarded from both sides than any other spot along the Line. 

He's thinking about comming her, maybe sarcastically thanking her for the makeover she gave his paint or sincerely asking if she's free later to share some of the high-grade he got from Dead End. He should be focused on his task here, he supposes, but in the absence of any sort of threat to react to he might as well be replaced with a non-sentient hauler. Getting his cargo bay loaded up doesn't really require his input.

She dives out of the sky suddenly, the flash of movement catching Astrotrain's optics. But she's not dive-bombing him, nor is she angled to attack some threat she might have spotted from the Autobots warily lined up just past the neutral radius. Instead she transforms into root mode right in front of the spacebridge, and sweeps another seeker up in her arms.

The embrace is almost immediately and unmistakably passionate, limbs clutching and grabbing with frantic motions, faceplates meeting for what looks like an intense series of kisses. If they're saying anything, they're too far away for his audio receptors to pick up.

Astrotrain shuts off his external optical feed. It isn't any of his business, doesn't concern him at all what Skywarp does with herself or with any other mecha.


End file.
